I have a workbook that includes many data sources including an Excel file. I want to be able schedule extract refreshes from the server for this workbook, however, the excel file is preventing the all the data sources from refreshing. (I'm sure it's not the other data sources.) At first, I tried connecting live from Tableau Server to the Excel file saved in a network folder (I unchecked "Include External Files") but this was creating issues because I use a Mac and could not figure out how to supply the UNC path of the network folder (my mac is using smb and UNC paths won't work.)

Next, I figured it would be okay if I could at least refresh all the other data sources on a daily basis and then manually refresh the excel extract once a week. I scrapped the live connection, saved the excel file to my local computer, checked "Include External Files," and tried to schedule the daily extract refreshes for my workbook (so that my database connection can at least update daily.) But now I'm getting an error caused by the excel extract refresh. Here is the error from the Tableau Server log file:

DataSourceException: Unable to connect to the file "C:\ProgramData\Tableau\Tableau Server\data\tabsvc\temp\TableauTemp\1wq32450g88gpa18hgkyr1cudl9t". Check that the file exists and that you have sufficient access privileges for it.

What does this mean? Do I have to enable Run As User in Tableau Server?

The "Server Run as User" account has full permissions on <myservername>\d$\Program Files\Tableau\Tableau Server\data\tabsvc\temp\TableauTemp directory and we are still seeing the error on extract refresh.

We published the dashboard using a windows machine to get it to work, but we also support a large user base and many of these users use Macs and I'd rather not go that route.

If it worked for you, using a Mac, please let me know the steps you used.